Name: Scallop Salad
Ingredients: scallops; salt; French Dressing; cayenne pepper; young lettuce leaves

Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scallop Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the scallops in salted boiling water for 3 minutes.
Once cold, cut each scallop in half.
Place the scallops in a salad bowl.
Dress with French Dressing and add a dash of cayenne pepper.
Surround with crisp young lettuce leaves.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Scallop + peppertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Scallop + lettucetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).